


Beauty

by just_ann_now



Category: Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-12
Updated: 2012-07-12
Packaged: 2017-11-09 19:52:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/457755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_ann_now/pseuds/just_ann_now
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Inspired by a very brief conversation at Ellen Kushner's journal, <a href="http://ellen-kushner.livejournal.com/295902.html#comments">here</a>.  "[Alec] doesn't think people should talk about bodies. It embarrasses him."</p>
    </blockquote>





	Beauty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Marta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marta/gifts).



> Inspired by a very brief conversation at Ellen Kushner's journal, [here](http://ellen-kushner.livejournal.com/295902.html#comments). "[Alec] doesn't think people should talk about bodies. It embarrasses him."

**Beauty**

Of course Alec knew everything there was to know about bodies; he couldn't have grown up in the Tremontaine gardens without having some idea. All those comforting and familiar figures from history and mythology, with their swords or scrolls or animal familiars; it never really occurred to him in his childhood that they were all, well, _naked_.

Right around the time the battles with his family began in earnest, Alec's body suddenly sprouted long limbs and startling hair and other, more disturbing, changes. He could no longer tell if this body was ally or traitor. It certainly did react strangely now to the Tremontaine garden; what had been a refuge loomed strange and jarring. His concentration seemed to fix on odd junctures of body parts which he had somehow never quite noticed before. He'd flush just thinking about them; even worse, he found himself thinking about them quite often. But then there was all that family drama to deal with. 

When he got to University, it became more of a burden. He could hardly bear to visit the bathhouse, the desire to look warring constantly with the embarrassment of being caught looking or, even worse, his unruly body reacting to what he saw around him. And what he heard - there was no mistaking what was going on in those curtained alcoves and dark corners. In the living quarters he had learned to knock, wait, and open doors very slowly in order to avoid embarrassment on all sides. 

But then there was Riverside, and Richard.

At first it flustered Alec no end when Richard would rise, naked from their bed, and begin his stretching and limbering movements. He'd steal peeks at him over the top of his book, hurriedly glancing away whenever Richard caught him. He'd watch, simultaneously horrified and delighted, as Richard threw the shutters open and leaned outside to sniff at the weather, only to be greeted with raucous catcalls from Marie and the other women in the courtyard below. Richard would wave and bow and duck back inside, laughing. 

Richard showed him, with infinite patience, everything he had ever wondered about, and some things that he had never even imagined. Richard's body was a magnificent machine, tooled and honed to perfection. Alec would look at his own body; long, lax, useless-looking, then sigh and pull the blankets up to his chin. 

"But you _are_ beautiful," Richard would murmur, nuzzling his throat. "Your hands, your legs, your hair, your eyes. Your voice. Your prick. Every bit of you. Why are you forever arguing with me about this?" 

"Because it's not- " he'd start to say, but then Richard would kiss him breathless, until Alec finally began to think that, as long as Richard thought so, it might be true after all.


End file.
